Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday February 02, 2011 @03:28PM
from the tattle-to-the-top dept.

mvar writes "Whistle-blower site WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian politician who cited its role in freedom of speech, news agency NTB reported Wednesday. 'WikiLeaks is one of this century's most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency,' parliamentarian Snorre Valen said in his nomination. Valen cited WikiLeaks' role in disclosing the assets of Tunisia's former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his nearest family, contributing to the protests that forced them into exile."

The Nobel Peace Prize means absolutely nothing now. It was blatantly given to someone who had not earned it and did not deserve it, and that person is Barack Obama. He wasn't even in office long enough to help or hinder peace for anyone when it was given to him. It's clear that this once-lofty prize has become infected and tainted by the very politics and cronyism that has corrupted most other institutions. So yeah, this is a nice gesture, but it's just a token one with no real meaning.

Oh and for you more childish types who instantly polarize when Obama is mentioned, grow up. I don't care how nice and decent of a fellow he is. I don't care how much you like him. None of that has anything to do with it. He simply hadn't done anything one way or another for the cause of peace when the prize was awarded to him. There are many people who were more deserving of it than him -- heroes, scientists, doctors, philanthropists, lots of folks who have done much more good. They were all passed up. That's the point.

And as the recepient of the prize is supposed to go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Wiki leaks certainly didn't do anything to promote fraternity between nations or reduce standing armies or even promote peace.

I've explained this before: the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Obama specifically for not being George W. Bush! Unfortunately, Obama has not done quite as well at not being Bush than many of us had hoped...

When you recieve something, you feel an obligation to try to uphold it. Obama said himself that he didn't feel like he deserved it, but that he would do his best to live up to it. In many ways, the prize in this instance was meant to serve as a preemptive, "please don't become George W. Bush." That isn't exactly the same as "getting the prize just because he isn't George W. Bush."

Maybe slashdotters are different from normal people, but what would you do if you recieved the Nobel Peace prize? Would it af

You're right it's not easy. You're right the situation is complicated. You're right we can't browbeat the Chinese government into treating their people decently. To me, that says the only thing we can realistically do is lead by example. Show the peoples of the world that America still believes in something more than expediency of the moment.

Unfortunately, for far too long, under far too many Presidents, we have done little of that. We coddle dictators as long as they give us something in return. Ch

You can see how the prize has become nothing more than a tool for political leverage -- albeit very poorly. This is true even when you consider the more recent recipient Liu Xiaobo. While he may be deserving of the prize, it is hard to ignore the political aspect -- i.e. getting China to make changes with respect to human rights. It almost feels as though this was actually the real intent of the prize, and that Liu Xiaobo was a nominee who happened to be an appropriate face for the prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize means absolutely nothing now. It was blatantly given to someone who had not earned it and did not deserve it, and that person is Barack Obama. He wasn't even in office long enough to help or hinder peace for anyone when it was given to him.

Some might say the prize was devalued when it was given to warmongers. Some might say the award was given as an encouragement, to try and influence his path.

It's clear that this once-lofty prize has become infected and tainted by the very politics an

The Nobel Peace Prize means absolutely nothing now. It was blatantly given to someone who had not earned it and did not deserve it, and that person is Henry Kissinger. While in office, he did very little to promote peace, and often actively promoted war. It's clear that this once-lofty prize has become infected and tainted by the very politics and cronyism that has corrupted most other institutions. So yeah, this is a nice gesture, but it's just a token one with no real meaning.

Oh and for you more childish types who instantly polarize when Kissinger is mentioned, grow up. I don't care how nice and decent of a fellow he is. I don't care how much you like him. None of that has anything to do with it. He simply hadn't done anything for the cause of peace when the prize was awarded to him. There are many people who were more deserving of it than him -- heroes, scientists, doctors, philanthropists, lots of folks who have done much more good. They were all passed up. That's the point.

The one who sounds polarized here is yourself bud. So you imply that anyone who responds in disagreement with you is "immature", ie you are right, end of story. Sounds like you might be the one needing some more years of fermenting.

As for your assertion that Obama receiving the prize is somehow absurd, I would have to disagree. The Obama campaign and his work leading to his election was one of the most positive things to happen in the world at that time, most specificially in generating a positve image for

What credibility? What has Wikileaks done for peace?
The mention of Tunisia is ridiculous. None of what was mentioned in the cables was news to Tunisians. It was not even news for me who never really researched about the situation in Tunisia. Ben Ali's regime collapsed because he oppressed its population for 20 years and at some point people got sick of it. They did not need anyone to tell them how much the Ben Ali clan was abusing its situation and robbing the country. Plus it remains to be seen how much good this whole revolution will bring.

Go back to that page. Find a timeline, or a list of things with dates attached. Filter them for those that have actually had an impact on world peace. Now, of those, how many happened before he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? He took office on the 20th of January, and was awarded the prize on the 10th of December, but the nominations closed on the first of February, meaning he'd been in office for less than two weeks before he was nominated and less than a year before he won.

He might deserve a Nobel Peace Prize in a few years. He got one in 2009 for not being George W Bush. Compare this 'achievement' to those of some of the previous winners, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Mpilo Tutu or Nelson Mandela.

Mind you, since they jointly awarded it to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon, for deciding to take a little break from their war it's not had a great deal of credibility.

perspective perspective perspective... I don't believe Yassir Araffat was the head of terrorist organization no more than G. W. Bush was.

I was bought up in India, and countless times in my history books I read how those who bombed the british rule and parliament were heroes, they still are today with countless statues all over the city. Today you call Arafat a terrorist, if Palestine is liberated he will go down as a hero.

Yes, perspective, perspective. I'm sure from someone's perspective any action can be justified.

The question you should ask is when did Yassir Arafat every do anything that resulted in a lasting peace? He certainly had opportunities, but he always ended up walking away from them. A lasting peace would have made him irrelevant.

The touchpoint for Tunisia was not Wikileaks, but a young, college-educated man trying to earn a meager living for his family through selling vegetables from a cart because he could find no other job. He didn't have the money to pay the bribes necessary to get a permit, and the police took away his only means of earning a living. On top of the confiscation, and because he refused to pay a bribe to get the cart back, the police assaulted him and insulted his family. When he went to protest, he was ignored, so he went and got some flammable liquid, doused himself with it, and ignited it. Demonstrations started shortly after this, and the police cracked down on them, escalating the demonstration to riots. It spiraled from there.

Pauling had been practically apolitical until World War II, but the aftermath of the war and his wife's pacifism changed his life profoundly, and he became a peace activist. During the beginning of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer invited him to be in charge of the Chemistry division of the project, but he declined, not wanting to uproot his family. He did work on other projects that had military applications such as explosives, rocket propellants, an oxygen meter for submarines and patented an armor piercing shell and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Merit.[37][38] In 1946, he joined the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, chaired by Albert Einstein.[39] Its mission was to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons. His political activism prompted the U.S. State Department to deny him a passport in 1952, when he was invited to speak at a scientific conference in London.[40][41] His passport was restored in 1954, shortly before the ceremony in Stockholm where he received his first Nobel Prize. Joining Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight other leading scientists and intellectuals, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955.[42]
In 1958, Pauling joined a petition drive in cooperation with the founders of the St. Louis Citizen's Committee for Nuclear Information (CNI). This group, headed by Washington University professors Barry Commoner, Eric Reiss, M. W. Friedlander, and John Fowler, set up a study of radioactive strontium-90 in the baby teeth of children across North America. The "Baby Tooth Survey," headed by Dr. Louise Reiss, demonstrated conclusively in 1961 that above-ground nuclear testing posed significant public health risks in the form of radioactive fallout spread primarily via milk from cows that had ingested contaminated grass.[43][44][45] Pauling also participated in a public debate with the atomic physicist Edward Teller about the actual probability of fallout causing mutations.[46] In 1958, Pauling and his wife presented the United Nations with the petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing. Public pressure and the frightening results of the CNI research subsequently led to a moratorium on above-ground nuclear weapons testing, followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963 by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. On the day that the treaty went into force, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Pauling the Nobel Peace Prize, describing him as "Linus Carl Pauling, who ever since 1946 has campaigned ceaselessly, not only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts."[47] The Committee for Nuclear Information was never credited for its significant contribution to the test ban, nor was the ground-breaking research conducted by Dr. Reiss and the "Baby Tooth Survey". The Caltech Chemistry Department, wary of his political views, did not even formally congratulate him. They did throw him a small party, showing they were more appreciative and sympathetic toward his work on radiation mutation. At Caltech he founded Sigma Xi's (The Scientific Research Society) chapter at the school, as he had previously been a member of that organisation. He continued his peace activism in the following years co-founding the International League of Humanists in 1974. He was president of the scientific advisory board of the World Union for Protection of Life and also one of the signers of the Dubrovnik-Philadelphia Statement.
Many of Pauling's critics, including scientists who appreciated the contributions that he had made in chemistry, disagreed with his political positions and saw him as a naive spokesman for Soviet communism. He was ordered to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which termed him "the number one scientific name in virtually every major activity of the Communist peace offensive in this country." A headline in Life magazine characterized his 1962 Nobel Prize as "A Weird Insult from Norway". Pauling was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize by the USSR in 1970.[48]

it was given to barack obama, because instead of emphasizing divisions and accumulated (rightful) anger, he chose to express a road of peace, union and collaboration in between races, and managed to successfully bring black and white together during his election campaign.
it doesnt matter whether you like him or not, it doesnt matter what our political views are. this was what had happened.
and, scientists dont get PEACE prices, fool.

So you're saying that he was eligible for the prize because he was a black man who got white people to vote for him? That's not peace, that's political success. Whether it has a long lasting affect on race relations in the US will remain be to be seen (I'm hopeful).

it was given to barack obama, because instead of emphasizing divisions and accumulated (rightful) anger, he chose to express a road of peace, union and collaboration in between races, and managed to successfully bring black and white together during his election campaign

As far as I could tell, he conducted a very ordinary campaign for a Democratic presidential candidate with the exception of himself being a black dude. This is not particularly noteworthy, and in my opinion, that speaks the loudest.

I don't think Al Gore's work on Global Warming deserves derision for being a stretch to tie to peace. If you take AGW as a given, then the connection to peace is pretty straightforward. Doing nothing about AGW = rising sea levels. Rising sea levels = hundreds of millions of displaced, angry people. Hundreds of millions of displaced, angry people = war.

I agree; I thought Nobel Prizes could only be awarded to individuals, which appears to indicate Assange even if he is just a figurehead. As he said on Saturday Night Live,

What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.

I thought the same too, but after looking through the list on wikipedia there are winners who are an institution and then a person won in the same year. I imagine the person is most likely a figure head of that institution, or someone really important who helped said institution.

2010 - LIU XIAOBO for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.

2009 - BARACK OBAMA for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

2008 - MARTTI AHTISAARI for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.

2007 - INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) and ALBERT ARNOLD ( AL) GORE JR. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

2006 - MUHAMMAD YUNUS and GRAMEEN BANK for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.

2005 - INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY and MOHAMED ELBARADEI for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.

2004 - WANGARI MAATHAI for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace

2003 - SHIRIN EBADI for her efforts for democracy and human rights

2002 - JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America, for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development

2001- UNITED NATIONS & KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General

2000 - KIM DAE JUNG for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular.

1998 - JOHN HUME and DAVID TRIMBLE for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

1997 - INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO BAN LANDMINES (ICBL) and JODY WILLIAMS for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.

1996 - The prize was awarded jointly to: CARLOS FELIPE XIMENES BELO and JOSE RAMOS-HORTA for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.

1995 - The prize was awarded jointly to: JOSEPH ROTBLAT and to the PUGWASH CONFERENCES ON SCIENCE AND WORLD AFFAIRS for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms.

1994 - The prize was awarded joinly to: YASSER ARAFAT , Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. SHIMON PERES , Foreign Minister of Israel. YITZHAK RABIN , Prime Minister of Israel. for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.

1993 - The prize was awarded jointly to: NELSON MANDELA Leader of the ANC. FREDRIK WILLEM DE KLERK President of the Republic of South Africa.

2. Doing a search for wikileaks nobel shows the top results as newsfeeds from AP and Reuters on Yahoo, the Reuters feed on Bing, and, err, neither of them on Google, but at least the top results are news articles about it.

So I think the notion that it'll be suppressed is a wee bit silly. Once it's out there, it's out there!

* and apparently the ordered list tag no longer works, or at least not in preview.

In 2010, 237 nominations were made for the Peace Prize, 38 of which were organizations. While it's of some apparent interest that Wikileaks got a nomination, it is one of many and nomination is open to a lot of people.

In fairness, they really gave it to the idea of Obama [artvoice.com] much more so than to Obama himself. And really, the idea of Obama is what many people voted for, while in the end we have all received for president the man Obama.

The last prize was given to a man (Obama) as a tool to promote peace, and not because of past contributions of the recipient toward peace. The world was tired of the Bush administration and their pro-war foreign policy, and the committee was banking on Obama making a change by giving him a major incentive to do so. Now it has become even more of a political tool with the nomination of Wikileaks. I cannot see how people can remain objective when it comes to considering Wikileaks as a candidate for the peace

Here's a hint: in most parts of the world, Wikileaks is celebrated without "but"s or "if"s . Just because your country in particular is different doesn't mean much in the overall picture. The fact that it Wikileaks generates controversy in your country says more about your country than Wikileaks.

The last prize was given to a man (Obama) as a tool to promote peace...

Actually the last prize was given to Liu Xiaobo.

The prize for Obama... I'm mixed. I think his rhetoric and election message was a genuine force for world peace, even though he wasn't president and hadn't done anything policy-wise. He was an advocate for peace, and that message reached and affected a lot of people.

I don't necessarily know that he was the single most significant advocate for peace of the year... but I don't begrudge him th

This is a quote taken from my local newspaper, by Raj Patel on American discontent with President Obama."A lot of us thought of him as the pizza delivery guy of change, where we would sit on our couches and he would being hot, steaming change in 30 minutes."

Which leads me to think, cultures and civilization can be easily destroyed by the drop of a bomb, to rebuild that will take time.

Here, now you can read past the first sentence and properly respond to the OP:

The 2009 prize was given to a man (Obama) as a tool to promote peace, and not because of past contributions of the recipient toward peace. The world was tired of the Bush administration and their pro-war foreign policy, and the committee was banking on Obama making a change by giving him a major incentive to do so. Now it has become even more of a political tool with the nomination of Wikileaks. I cannot see how people can remain

He is probably in China, and therefore does not know that the last Nobel peace prize was given to a "terrorist" under house arrest for the unthinkable crime of handing out leaflets that were not 100% supportive of his glorious leaders.

You are right. The last prize was given to Liu Xiaobo. That does not change the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize is really just a political tool. In fact, when you consider Liu Xiaobo as a winner, and the fact that his name was essentially blotted out of the news in China, it only confirms what I wrote earlier. In the country in which that prize SHOULD have mattered most, the citizens were likely not even aware of it.

As far as the last 30 years concerned, they are the ONLY source that has contributed to freedom of speech and the public knowing what their governments were doing. last major flop was during watergate, and both the governments and corporations learned how to deal with that - buy buying out all media into conglomerates. result ? no watergate in the last 30 years.

and no, cryptome, unfortunately, didnt mean shit.

first, they didnt have any success in bringing the issues to the masses into mass media - they never went into danger and publicity like wikileaks did, so it was easy for mainstream media to totally ignore them - just like how they totally kept public in the dark about acta, if you want an example -

The Nobel Peace Prize, according to Alfred Nobel's will, should be awarded to the person (or organization) who "...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Whatever you might think about WikiLeaks' contributions to free speech politics, government transparency, etc., it's hard to see how it's filled any of those criteria. The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.

Of course, as others have observed, it seems to have been some time since the letter of Nobel's will has meant anything to the Peace Prize committee.

The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.

The release of other things did a lot of good.

The release of the diplomatic cables did not end the world, and while the governments were embarrassed the actual people I think have been brought together by the frank disclosure that their leaders were being duplicitous jerks. (We all knew this all along, of course. But just putting it out in the open still makes a difference.

I don't flatly disagree with any of your observations. My point is simply that "doing a lot of good," "making a difference," or even the laudable goal of holding governments to account for their actions are not a basis for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize.

I don't think even Wikileaks would suggest that their mission directly entails the reduction of standing armies, the promotion of peace congresses, or fostering fraternity between nations. Their claimed purposes have more to do, again, with transparency, free speech, and public accountability. Those are all good things, but they are not the principles on which Nobel originally wanted the prize awarded.

The fact that there is no Nobel Prize awarded for good work in advancing free speech principles does not mean the criteria for awarding an existing prize should be distorted just so we can give a shout out to some entity whose political aims we like or agree with. Unfortunately, this is more or less what the Peace Prize has become--an amorphous love letter from the Nobel Committee to whoever happens to be doing what they like at the moment.

By shining a light into a cave you may see enough to avoid danger. You may also awaken a den of bears who attack and eat you. Don't blame the light for the result -- the light is neither good nor evil -- but instead use it to attain knowledge and then use that knowledge for good. Sometimes a frank discussion leads to greater understanding and sometimes it leads to a fight. One hopes we are capable at some point of having that grown-up discussion.

The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.

Only if you see fraternity between nations as the interactions between their governments. The people of those nations, on the other hand, may get along much better as a result.

Humiliate abusive governments, make it obvious what they do. Both the US Federal Government and its meddling in the affairs of other nations and the oppressive governments of the middle east. Maybe then we can come to an understanding without wort

Well... Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, José Ramos-Horta, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa...
The list of great people who won the Peace Nobel goes on and on.
You have to look at the big picture here, instead of focusing on United States petty politics.

Premise 1: The Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded to the person who "...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Assuming your premises are all correct, Bradley Manning should be receiving the Peace Prize, since, you know, he's the one who put his ass on the line to steal those documents and expose the secrets. Without PFC Manning and people like him, Assange would just be an obnoxious misogynist with a web site.

While we're at it, let's give Random House Publishing the Nobel prize for Literature, too. That book they published this year was REALLY good!